The
Working Group on Energy set up by the Foreign Ministers Troika in March
1998 as part of the relaunch of dialogue between the European Union (EU)
and Iran, and which comprises representatives of the European Commission
and the Iranian authorities held its third meeting on 19 October 2002
in Teheran. The meeting was chaired by François Lamoureux,
Director-General for Energy and Transport, on the Commission side, and by
Dr Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, Deputy Minister of Petroleum for
International Affairs, on the Iranian side. It followed on from meetings
held on 18-19 May 1999 and on 28 March 2001, in Teheran and Brussels
respectively.

In
the framework of the White Paper on European Transport Policy, that placed
the user at the heart of the transport system, the European Commission
services have prepared a consultation document to assess the situation on
the rights of international railway passengers. The document,
already available on the internet addresses key issues including
information provided to passengers, quality of the services, complaint
handling, compensation for delays, etc. All the interested parties are
invited to submit their comments on this consultation paper by 24 November
2002 (e-mail tren-rail@ec.europa.eu).
A hearing of the European organisations representing the railway industry
and the passengers' interests will be held on 15 November, in presence of
Member States representations. From the results of this open debate, the
Commission intends to table a draft regulation on the issue by the end of
the year.

The
Spanish Ministry for Development, along with its main public transport
infrastructure agencies Gestión de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias
(GIF), Ente Publico de Aeropuertos Espanoles y Navegacion Aerea
(AENA), Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles Espanoles (RENFE) and Puertos
del Estado (PdE) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European
Union's long-term financing institution, have concluded on 17 October
2002, at the Ministry's initiative, four Framework Cooperation
Agreements for financing large-scale investment projects.

On
22 October 2002 in Brussels a second meeting concerning the US
Container Security Initiative was held between European Commission and US
Customs officials. A first meeting of officials was held in Washington on
July 31, after Frits Bolkestein, European Commissioner for Taxation and
Customs, and Pascal Lamy, European Commissioner for Trade, wrote jointly
to US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and US Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick on 11 July. Commissioner Bolkestein will discuss the CSI
initiative with US Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge in Brussels on 4
November.

The
European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union's financing
institution, announced on 22 October 2002 a EUR 120 million loan to
Office National d'Electricite (ONE). The project financed aims to
increase the transmission capacity of power interconnectors between
Morocco and two neighbouring countries (Spain and Algeria) as well as to
make the existing domestic network more secure and reliable.

The
European Investment Bank (EIB) is reaffirming its commitment to the
TGV-Est Europe high-speed rail project by granting on 21 October 2002
EUR 71 million and EUR 24 million loans respectively to the Departments of
Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin. The finance contracts were signed today in
Strasbourg and Colmar by Mr Francis Mayer, EIB Vice-President, and by Mr
Philippe Richert and Mr Constant Goerg, Chairmen of the General Councils
of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin.

On
her official visit to Portugal, from 16 to 18 October, Loyola de
Palacio, Commission Vice-President responsible for transport and energy,
raised the main issues in her portfolio, particularly completion of the
single energy market. She issued a reminder of the many obstacles still
standing in the way before a true energy market can be created, as
significant imbalances and disparities persist in access and
infrastructure charges. She called for speeding up the process of opening
the market, which is a precondition for making Europe more competitive. "However," she added,
"and here I touch an issue that is
especially important to the Commission, market opening can never go to the
detriment of small customers, nor should it jeopardise our security of
supply."

Parliament
approved on second reading, on 23
October 2002, Council's
common position, in which most of Parliament's amendments from first
reading were taken on board. Council had deleted in its entirety Article 9
of the Commission proposal, which referred to the need for confidential
reporting. In an amendment, Parliament demanded this Article 9 of the
Commission proposal to be reinstated, due to the importance of
confidential reports for a better understanding of human factors, which
may be involved in the occurrence of air accidents. In situations where a
reported occurrence is the result of an act of gross negligence, Member
States must be permitted to institute proceedings. An amendment to
reinstate this Article 8, paragraph 2a was also approved.

The
Industry Committee gave its backing on 21 October 2002 to "Intelligent Energy for Europe", an action programme which is to
run from 2003 to 2006 and replace measures under the ALTENER, SAVE and
SYNERGY programmes. However in the report by Eryl McNALLY (PES, UK) under
the codecision procedure, first reading, MEPs called for a number of changes to the
Commission proposal.

The
contents of this digest are prepared by officials of the Energy and
Transport DG and represent their personal views on the subject
matters. These views have not been adopted or in any way approved by
the European Commission and should not be relied upon as a statement
of the Commission or the Energy and Transport DG.